


now i belong to you

by booooin



Series: belonging [1]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Yu-Gi-Oh! Series
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alpha/Omega, Claiming, Consent Issues, Dirty Talk, Dystopia, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Manipulation, Human Trafficking, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Negotiation, M/M, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Miscommunication, Multi, Past Torture, Power Dynamics, Prostitution, Scenting, Science Fiction, Sexual Slavery, Slow Burn, Therapy, environmental collapse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 01:39:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12378225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booooin/pseuds/booooin
Summary: In an environmentally polluted dystopia, omegas are bred as commodities and only the elite has access to resources. Bakura finds Ryou and they continually surprise each other.





	now i belong to you

**Author's Note:**

> Hey y'all! This is my first Alpha/Beta/Omega verse. I've been dreaming about this verse for a year, finally wrote it and, boy, is it long! Instead of splitting it into chapters, I decided to post it as a long one shot.
> 
> Hope you enjoy :)

Bakura was having a shit day. One of his clients had withheld all the crucial information from him from a case that blew up in his face. What was proposed to him initially as a charitable foundation was really an omega trafficking ring. It was to be expected - there was no such thing as charity in this political climate. However, he liked to get a heads up on just how illicit the nature of his job was going to be, which was hard because wealthy people were full of shit. The betas who ran this particular ring were laundering money left and right, took him for a fool, and wanted to cut costs by hiring him to rough up whoever was taking cuts too big off one of their main branches.

On top of that, Marik was acting up again. Bakura had made it clear he was only willing to work with him if Marik kept his family and ex-military career out of their professional relationship. That morning, when Marik shoved a gun in the client's face and told him to make like the gun was a cock, Bakura wished he's never pulled the strings to get Marik out of the labor camp he was headed into when they first had the pleasure of meeting.

Now, they were in Bakura's car, heading towards the slums Bakura had supposedly been born in. Marik looked too cheery. He was prepping a machine gun with strips of bullets.

"You're not a sadist. You're a fucking moron," Bakura told him for the millionth time. "You're no good. People like you fuck up the world and you're even a bad influence on me."

Cheekily, Marik just sneered. "Malik says you're the bad influence."

They were the worst team in the whole wide world - a psychopath with the training to make him a world class killer and a ruthless businessman after nothing but money and political power.

Bakura grew up in the slums but he had no plans to stay there for long. He'd started small and turned a small career in local violence legitimate not by toning down the bloodshed but by amping it up and by going after bigger, more powerful clients. The clients paid well and he used the money to buy politicians, shares in corporations, and more underhanded forms of influence. The papers called him one of the most important people in the world. They called him a success, one that pulled himself up with his own bootstraps. Bakura still had the blood on his hands to prove it.

"Yes, I am influential," Bakura sneered back. "If you put a toe out of line again, Ishtar, I'm going to tie you up and break your legs. This won't be like what happened with the Offenhols." Marik just laughed.

The Ishtars were an old money family. Their lineage could be traced back to the old rulership and there was talk they're helped put the new one in through clever political strategizing. All Bakura knew was that the brothers were real shit heads, both of them. Malik, the beta, had his own clothing line but didn't have an actual job. All he did with his time was smoke weed, troll social media, and fuck the living daylights out of Bakura when he felt like it. Bakura couldn't be bothered to butt heads against that particular kind of spoiled, smart aleck, nihilism.

Marik, the alpha, however, was the real fuck up as far as public opinion was concerned. His family put years of investment in him becoming a young military commander only to have him literally blow the brains out of his father as soon as he turned twenty eight.

With a family that prominent and a scandal so macabre, there was only one thing that the rich and famous could do - call Bakura. Now, Marik worked for him and Bakura was paid millions of year to keep up this farce. As far as he could see, it wasn't worth it. Marik was a mad dog, only useful for scaring the shit out of people in name, and fostered a special talent for killing people Bakura needed alive.

The traffic got worse when they pulled into the slums. This was an entire underground city built in a old coal mine that got bigger and bigger, back when coal was still a commodity, most members of the disappearing middle class and beyond were content to pretend did not exist. Shacks were piled up on top of each other and people were milling about with nothing to do, getting in the dark, tungsten lit streets. Everything smelled like shit, garbage, and urine. A little boy was peeing in the middle of the street, staring right at their car, a luxury sports mobile, and Bakura considered running him over. Down here, no one would bat an eye.

"Listen closely and listen good," Bakura said when they got moving again. "You do whatever is necessary to get a money trail from whoever is working this joint but you blow his head open before he can talk? We're through. Cut. Done."

Marik turned the radio on and blasted it loud. Bakura turned it off.

"You hear me? The words coming out of my mouth?"

Marik had the nerve to side eye him. "Yeah, sure. Get bloody but not too bloody. Bark louder than my bite. Got it, sir, yes, sir."

 

* * *

 

The john was late. This made Anderson mad and when he was mad, he took it out on Ryou. He had a foot between Ryou's legs and pressed until Ryou's eyes watered.

"You know, it's too bad we can't fuck around a little, right? Since he's taking his time and all?" Anderson looked Ryou up and down lecherously. He was a beta but an alpha would still smell him on Ryou if he got any closer, especially during his heat.

Someone had called in that morning and offered an obscene amount of money for an hour with an omega in heat. The only reason they chose Ryou to do it was because it was so last minute and all the other omegas were working. Ryou was usually on the street. The in house assignments were for the younger omegas and now that Ryou was in his twenties, they expanded him to push the clients on his own.

The caller had left specific instructions. One handler to take the cash in a discreet hotel room and to leave the omega tied up tight on the bed. They'd left Ryou like this before, during his heat, legs tied apart and that burning need exposed between them. That time, he'd gotten booked for a party and a group of betas took their time with him all night.

The alpha clients were the easier ones. The thing was, they didn't like seeing an omega bloodied up. It was against their nature. Fucking was straightforward and Ryou could even manipulate them if he wanted to, at least a little. The betas that bought him, they were in it for the sadism alone.

This client was probably an alpha. They were the ones with the cash to make calls like this and specifically order an omega in the middle heat.

Not that they knew it but Ryou's had been reengineered to be this way. As soon as he presented, they started him on the drugs. Now his heats were days long instead of the regular 24 hour cycle, intense, and came around every month instead of three. They heated him up from the inside out and made his insides cramp until everything was pain, need, and emptiness. His skin was damp and slick glossed his thighs.

The most humiliating thing was that Ryou needed the clients as much as they wanted him now. No alpha would take him in now that his body was this fucked. If he had to go through the heats unmated, Ryou would lose his mind. He saw it happen to the older omegas, ones who couldn't get any more clients. They got desperate first, hysterical second, and when they begged for a mercy killing, their organs were harvested. That was the typical omega life cycle on these streets.

That wasn't something Ryou could think about, not right then. Lust clouded his brain and, if he jerked in his restraints, it wasn't because he was trying to run. It was because he needed something inside him or he was going to die.

 

* * *

 

The hotel was run by a woman with a giant wart on her face. Now that the nuclear store facilities had leaked into the ground water, you saw this more and more. The wart took over her entire face but the rest of it was done up carefully in cheap foundation and eyeliner.

"Number?" she barked.

"304." Bakura gave her the keycard he'd used to make the booking and she went back to her mobile game. She didn't even care that one of the men coming into her hotel was carrying a machine gun.

Outside the door, Bakura raised a finger, another, and before he raised the third, told Marik, "I'll personally kill you if you fuck this deal up for me."

 

* * *

 

Ryou heard the noise but couldn't lift himself off the bed enough to see what had caused it. It took a second for him to realize it came from inside the room.

Anderson was on the floor and there were two men standing over him, one holding a big gun with blood on it. It has been bashed into Anderson's head.

"Godammit, Marik! What did I say?"

"Chill, man."

The two men were alphas, both of them, and smelling them made Ryou's hips buck up in need. His body was a traitor. This was it. He was going to get fucked and die. Ryou had to force himself to turn his head.

The blonde one saw him first, grinned like a predator, and came closer. The one with a red hoodie was checking out Anderson's body.

"In the car, on the way, all morning," he went on, "What did I say? We need to keep him alive, Marik, we need him to send a message to the higher ups. We need information from him."

"Death sends a message," The blonde one, Marik, said looking right at Ryou. It made more slick run down his ass and into the bed.

"Yeah, the wrong message."

Marik sat down on Ryou's bed and Ryou could distinguish his scent from the other one's. It was cooler and more mellow. The other one was acrid and burned. "You don't think this one knows anything?"

That was when the one in the red hoodie approached and, as he did so, his scent overpowered Marik's. Ryou gasped. He'd smelled plenty of alpha in his lifetime while in heat but this took him by the throat and made him moan out loud.

"Oh, Christ," the man in the red hoodie said.

"Omegas are loyal to their alpha," Marik said, standing up. Cold metal pressed against Ryou's skull and he realized the gun was on his head. "We don't know if he's going to pull anything."

The other man wasn't listening. He was staring at Ryou with an expression that was shock, disgust, and something else. There were pieces of his hair that weren't tucked under his hoodie and Ryou realized his hair was white.

He smelled sharp, complex, and Ryou's heart was racing. It was probably the adrenaline. He was conflating it with the scent of this alpha. The other one was about to pull the trigger and Ryou's body was just reacting accordingly. He was in heat, naked, and spread eagled on a dirty, hotel bed with two strange alphas in the room, able to do anything they wanted to him. The way the alpha in the hoodie was looking at Ryou was going to make him hyperventilate.

That wouldn't do. Ryou didn't survive this long losing his cool when something out of the ordinary happened.

He turned his head, leaning into the gun, pulled helplessly against the rope around his wrists to make a point, and blinked up at Marik. "And what do you think I'm going to do again?"

When he looked back at the white haired alpha, he was full on smirking.

 

* * *

 

The only thing they came out with was an omega in heat, one with a barcode tattooed on his neck, eyes smeared in clumpy glitter, and in full heat in Bakura's backseat. The woman at the hotel counter didn't even blink, just said "Come back soon" without looking up from her game. The omega was going to ruin the leather on the seat and it was all Marik's fault.

The client wasn't going to be happy about the way they decided to send the message. Bakura had a reputation as a thug but he wanted to be known as a smart thug, not a stupid one. This shit Marik pulled was going to set him back for months.

Now, thanks to Marik, he had an omega stinking up his sports car.

Bakura had smelled omegas before but he hadn't ever been interested, choosing to fuck betas all his life. This entire nation's economy depended on a barely official network on omega trading. Those in power turned a blind eye and passed motions aiming towards omega "protection" that put them under the charge of alpha ownership, all that legalese effectively rendering them property. Trading omegas was the only way anyone in the slums could make a decent living. The earlier the omegas made it out, the earlier they were trained, marked up, and resold. They could even find a comfortable, though invisible, place in middle class society if they were lucky. It was the stuff soap operas were made of.

The one in Bakura's backseat was too old to ever make it out. He was going to spend the rest of his days fucking dozens of men a night until his body gave out and then he was going to be buried in the chemically scarred fields where no one would find his body.

That is, if Bakura took him back to the streets with the message he needed to get to his bosses.

"Can we turn on some AC?" Marik asked lazily, pinching his nose. The window was already down. The smell of an omega in heat was unbearable for both of them. "Where are you going to drop him off anyway?"

Without thinking about it, Bakura made an U turn. "I'm not dropping him off," he told Marik. "I'm dropping you off."

 

* * *

 

The alpha's, Bakura's, house was extravagant. It was all steel, glass, and light, in a neighborhood where houses were spaced so far apart you couldn't see your neighbors standing on your own street. The garage had enough room for six cars and the doors were unlocked with a fingerprint.

"Oh," said Ryou when he was inside. "You're rich."

There were no other omegas and no evidence of any having ever lived here. Ryou would be able to smell one. All he smelled was wealth and power. He wondered if he would be allowed to stay the night before Bakura took him back to bosses that would probably bury him alive for letting Anderson getting taken down.

There was only one reason an alpha would take him home, steal him really, and so Ryou slid up close when Bakura turned to shut the door and leaned into the alpha's backbone.

Immediately, the alpha reacted. "Oh fuck you," Bakura said and pulled Ryou into a hard kiss. Bakura's lips were chapped and he ravaged Ryou's mouth, giving him no time to breath.

Ryou put his hand against Bakura's ear so his wrist slipped by his nose, releasing his scent right where it counted. "Show me your bedroom."

Incredulous, Bakura stared. "Shit. Okay."

The bedroom was large and wooden, a minimal bed in the middle of the room and an expensive looking carpet on the floor. Ryou wanted to lay in that carpet as soon as he saw it and pulled Bakura in that direction.

"Let's do it," he suggested and opened his legs. There was no way for Bakura to resist. Ryou's slick was leaking down his pants and down his thighs. It would smell intoxicating to the alpha.

Bakura growled and Ryou answered by leaning his head back, exposing his neck, letting himself seem vulnerable. He wanted Bakura to treat him like he was his. Then, Bakura knelt down and pulled at the zipper on Ryou's pants.

What was he doing? This was only going to work if Bakura threw him down and fucked him facedown.

"You're not even hard," Bakura said, feeling him up.

Ryou was pissed but Bakura was already getting up and sitting on the bed. "Do I need to be?"

"Ideally, yes."

Now, Ryou wasn't sure where he was allowed to sit, whether he should keep standing with his fly open in the middle of the room or not. He wasn't sure where he was or why he was here.

"I'm wet," he said and added "for you" a second too late and in a voice that was overly sweet.

Bakura wasn't buying it and folded his arms. "I've had a shit day," he said.

Carefully, Ryou sat down next to him on the bed. He was a mess and didn't want to get the sheets dirty. They looked more expensive than anything he's slept on before. "Oh. I'm sorry."

Ryou could tell his presence visibly disturbed Bakura and Ryou wasn't sure what to do about that so he put a hand on Bakura's shoulder, then his chin. He was pushed off right away.

"I've had a shit life," he tells Bakura, rubbing dirty makeup out of an eye and looking around the room again. The design was modern and everything in it probably cost a fortune. When Bakura grabbed the back of his shirt and pulled him down on the bed, Ryou let him, didn't react, just stared at the ceiling. He was smarting off too much and proud men only appreciated a certain amount of it.

"You're costing me good business," Bakura told him. "I should put you back where you belong.  I should've left you there in that room with a note carved into you."

Ryou didn't say anything. The hand on his collar was too tight and made breathing hard. He imagined being in that room, stripped, Bakura slicing him open with a knife.

Then Bakura got up and stared down at Ryou. "I'm going to make dinner. Then, we can get some rest."

 

* * *

 

Cooking, Bakura learned from his aunt. She was just another refugee, scared of venturing out of the slums, and took him in with her three kids when his parents were nowhere to be found and her fourth kid passed from pneumonia. She wasn't his real aunt, just some woman from his village. He never got as much food as his brothers and did the most work both inside and outside the house.

He makes eggplant and pork chops broiled in spices and vinegar. When he was done, Ryou was hanging out in the kitchen.

"You feel fine walking around?" Most omegas wallowed in bed during their heats, or so Bakura was told from all the cultural programming associated with them.

Ryou just blinked and leaned against the counter like he had no idea what to do with himself. "Oh, were you going to feed me in bed?"

Just what the hell Bakura was thinking bringing a trafficked sex slave home with him, he had no idea. Now, said sex slave was giving him attitude in his own home.

"If you feel fine," he told Ryou, "You should at least help out."

Ryou smelled the food. "I don't know how to cook."

Bakura snorted. "Get some plates. Cupboard on your left."

When they were settled and eating together, it felt almost domestic, not like Bakura was a gangster turned business man and not like Ryou was a trafficking victim. Ryou kept putting salt on every bite of food, twiddling his fingers against the fork, and picked at his food.

"Are you a junkie?"

Ryou stopped eating completely stared at Bakura. "Do I seem like one?"

The nervousness, the tics, the darting eyes - they were all symptoms of something Bakura had seen time and time again and had no wish to go into. Ryou's arms were clean, though. No track marks and his eyes were clear. "A little."

"It's just that I could use a good fuck right now," Ryou said loudly like he's complaining about bad service in a restaurant, drowning his entire plate in salt.

 

* * *

 

It took a week for Bakura to realize that he had brought Ryou home to keep.

The day Ryou came out of his heat, Bakura came home and found him on the couch upside down, feet sliding up and down the wall and head on the floor.

"Hi," Ryou had greeted him dully. "Welcome home. I'm hungry."

The day had started at 6:00 AM for Bakura and it was now 9:38 PM. He had to deal with a Chinese gang who protected their own and were suspicious of outsiders but had enough stock manipulations that they owned half of the retail market. For days now, he had been waking up wrapped up in Ryou's slick and a hard on he had to shower off. All he had time to get for lunch was a slice of pizza at a deli with rats running up the walls.

"Let's go out," Bakura said.

"Oh," Ryou said the way he does. "I don't really want to go outside."

This was the first time Ryou ventured outside of his bedroom since the first night. He looked comfortable on the couch and asking Bakura for food. Omegas weren’t supposed to ask for anything - they were supposed to be unassuming above all else. Bakura realized then that taking Ryou back to the slums was never an option since he took that U turn. Ryou was here for good and Bakura hadn't even noticed.

Bakura sat on the couch and wrapped a hand around Ryou's knee. It was a skinny leg. "You're wearing my clothes."

"Mine are dirty."

"I'll buy you new clothes."

From the floor, Ryou looked at Bakura with an expression he didn't understand. "I'm hungry," he said again.

"If you won't go out, then make something. I'm too tired to cook."

Ryou just leaned a leg onto Bakura's shoulder. It was clumsy, hard enough to hurt a little, and playful. "Let's go out then."

 

* * *

 

The restaurant Bakura took them to was a small cafe close to his neighborhood. There weren’t many people and all of them were white, even the servers. Ryou had never eaten at a restaurant with white servers before.

"What do you want?" Bakura asked once they were seated. The menu is filled with things that Ryou has never heard of.

"Can you order for me?" Ryou asked, tilting his head just right and putting his menu away. "I don't like making choices." Bakura stared at him like he was ridiculous and they ended up with two burgers and crisps to share.

It took five minutes for Ryou to swallow the whole thing. The heats made him lose his appetite so he became ravenous when they were over. The burger was better than anything he’s ever eaten. ”Can I have a dessert?" he asked when he was done.

He was checking Bakura for embarrassment. Ryou wasn't exactly the sort of person who most members of society would be proud to be seen out with - he had a bar code tattooed on his neck and no table manners whatsoever. Anyone who saw that together would assume that Bakura was buying sex and gauche enough to be seen with his hooker in public. All Bakura had done the since they sat down was text, barely looking up to eat.

Bakura waved the waiter over and ordered Ryou some strawberry sorbet. "Do you want wine?"

Both the waiter and Bakura were waiting for Ryou to answer in a silence that made Ryou want to get up and walk away. Before he could answer, the waiter cut in.

"Sir, we have a nice prosecco at the moment, if you like something sweeter. If you'd like a drier wine, I'd suggest you try the riesling."

Ryou twisted the cloth napkin on the table around a finger and realized Bakura had draped his over his lap.

"He'll have the prosecco," Bakura said when he saw that Ryou wasn't going to respond.

"What if I don't like it?" asked Ryou when the waiter had walked away.

The look Bakura gave him then was cool and level. "Then I'll order you something else.”

“I’ve never been to a nice restaurant.”

“This isn’t one.”

Ryou pouted but Bakura was too busy doing something on his phone and eating to see.

 

* * *

 

If he was going to keep Ryou, Bakura supposed he should register him and get him the vaccinations required to live as long as possible in the modern world. He has no idea if Ryou has STDs but, since he avoided the question, blood related diseases he could have gotten shooting up. Ryou needed new clothes too. Bakura's clothes made him seem tiny and loopy and his own jeans were made with the type of material that would fall apart after a few washes.

It's been five years since he'd taken a day off work and Marik gave him a knowing look.

“Is he good?"

“I don’t know how many times I have to say this. We’re not friends. We’re not even coworkers,” Bakura had replied. “You’re my employee and we don’t have personal conversations.”

The clinic Bakura found was a private one. It was in the office district in the city's central region. On the drive over, Ryou sat in the front and fiddled with the controls, blasting hot and cold air, and tried on the sunglasses Marik left on the windshield.

"These don't smell like you," Ryou said, wrinkling his nose.

Bakura turned a corner. “Then don't wear them."

Goofily, Ryou grins. "Just because they don't smell like you?"

"Yes," Bakura smirked.

"Are you going to pretty woman me?" Ryou asked in a slow, careful voice.

"Sure, if that's what you want."

Inside the clinic, Bakura filled out the necessary paperwork while an alpha and omega couple huddled together whispering conspirationally. Occasionally, the omega giggled and the alpha wrapped a wrist around his neck casually.

Bakura tapped his pen on the clipboard. "Any pre-existing health conditions?"

"Huh?" Ryou was flipping through a celebrity magazine, looking bored. "Hey, you're in this magazine." There was a blurry photo of Bakura and Malik leaving a hotel together with a caption that read "Ishtar's Secret Love Affair?"

Bakura put down not applicable. "Great. What about allergies?"

"I can't eat shellfish."

"They're asking about drugs."

"I told you, I don't do drugs."

Fuck this. Bakura put down unknown for everything and handed the paperwork to the receptionist. They were seen right away because the appointment was booked under Bakura's name.

The doctor, Dr. Wilkins, was a man in his thirties, a beta. In his twenties, he'd published a very important paper on sport injuries and now had a well established private practice for the elite.

"Mr. Bakura," he greeted, clapping Bakura on the back the way he specifically disliked. "How have you been, my man?"

"He needs a full physical." Bakura gestured to Ryou. "I'll wait outside."

"Are you sure? You're welcome to stay in the room."

Bakura would really rather not. He believed in space and medical privacy was a type he especially favored. "I'll be outside," he said again and felt Ryou's hand slip into his.

Dr. Wilkins laughed. "I think someone wants you to stay."

Bakura hated the way he said that, he really did, but Ryou was weaving their fingers together until he followed them into the operating room and shut the door.

"Let check your eyes first," Dr. Wilkins began with. He was blatantly staring at the car code tattooed on Ryou’s neck but didn’t say anything. He had Ryou follow a little flashlight around with his eyes. Next was reflexes and ears. "Hold your left ear closed for me?" the doctor asked. "When I snap on your right side, open it." When he snapped his fingers, Ryou didn't respond.

After writing something down on the clipboard, Dr. Wilkins told Bakura, "Slight deafness on the right ear." To Ryou he said, "Raise your right arm."

Ryou grimaced when he raised his arm and the doctor frowned. The left side was fine but Dr, Wilkins wanted to take X-rays. "There's bruising around the ribcage. Might be a fracture or two in there."

The tone the doctor took had gotten colder and colder. Now, the fake camaraderie he started out with was completely gone. Bakura could just see the assumptions he was making in his head. A dark skinned male alpha comes in with an omega. Of course there's cracked ribs and punched ears.

"Would you like him to have the full physical?" The doctor's voice was downright cold now.

This was fine. Bakura preferred it like this. "That's what I said, right?"

After giving Ryou a hospital gown, the doctor told them to knock when they were done and stepped out of the room. Ryou frowned at the gown.

"I don't want to take my clothes off. Is he going to stick his thing in me? Can we leave?” He had got to be kidding. Here Ryou was deaf in one ear, ribs fractured, and trying to pass off medical care in a one liner.

"Ryou, take this seriously."

They had a stare off until Ryou took his shirt off. "Can you help me?"

"Are you serious?" Ryou was fine dressing himself that morning.

"Yeah. I have broken ribs."

"Fractured, maybe. You were fine this morning."

"I didn't know I had broken ribs this morning."

It was all a ploy to get Bakura close to him while he was half naked, for whatever reason. When Bakura helped him slide his jeans off, Ryou hooked a leg around his back. "You smell great," Bakura couldn't help but say.

Ryou smiled. "Thanks."

 

* * *

 

Ryou hated doctors. The only one he had been to tied him up and cut him open. After the operation, he felt like he was never the same.

This wasn't much different except the place was cleaner and his hands and feet weren't strapped down. The metal instrument the doctor stuck into him stretched him open.

"We're doing a pap smear." The doctor's voice was nervous now. Usually alphas didn't like other people, even doctors, doing this to their omega but Bakura couldn't look like he gave less of a shit. This insulted Ryou.

The doctor put a Q-tip inside him and it felt horrible. This whole thing was horrible. Ryou realized he could have something and Bakura would probably put him back in the slums where he belonged to die.

"There's a lot of scarring and..."

Seconds passed.

"And what?" Bakura asked.

"Has he had any operations before?"

Now, Bakura was staring at Ryou, the doctor between his legs. Ryou wished he was anywhere but here. He wanted to go back in time and figure out some way of getting out of this visit.

"I had an abortion," he admitted. It was with a doctor in the slums, or someone who called himself a doctor. Really, it was a death appointment with a butcher.

"It looks like they took out part of the reproductive system with the embryo."

Ryou had no idea what that meant but he could guess. He didn't let himself react. There was ringing in his ears.

Bakura spoke up on his behalf. "What the hell does that do?"

"Well, he'll never have to worry about birth control, that's for sure. It’s all fucked in there.”

 

* * *

 

They finish the physical and Ryou is negative for most infections, save HPV, and HIV negative. The x-ray they take shows that he's missing a kidney and, by that point, Dr. Wilkins is visibly spooked.

"Look, I found him in the gutter, okay? He’s a street rat. Took him home a week ago," Bakura snapped.

Relief flooded into Dr. Wilkins's entire demeanor. "Oh, that's very good of you!" he said, impressed. "Most people would walk by a kid like that."

He said it like Ryou wasn't right there in the room with them. He used the word "kid" because he wanted to make it clear he thought Bakura wasn't sleeping with Ryou which, Bakura realized, he wasn't. They slept in the same bed, were careful with each other, and it hadn't gotten sexual after that first night.

The doctor doesn't shut up. "It's hard to think about how he survived in this condition for so long. That abortion could have cost him his life - birthing the baby would have been safer. But I understand. In these populations, a kid is just another mouth to feed and an expensive one at that."

Bakura scowled and bit his tongue. “Hey doc, why don't you step out again? We need to get the fuck on with our day."

The doctor flushed red and left the room in embarrassment.

 

* * *

 

After the doctor, Bakura walked Ryou back to the car like nothing was wrong. He could run, Ryou realized. If he did the police would probably pick him up and drop him back in the slums where his old bosses were waiting for him. He could go back to his own life instead of trying to pass through this one like he belonged here.

"Let's get you some clothes," Bakura said, pulling out into the street. Ryou thought that he could still run, he'd just drop onto the pavement. Maybe he'd get run over by a car and die right there. "Anywhere you want to go?"

Ryou didn't say anything, just rolled the window down and stuck his head through. Outside, tiny trees and buildings swooped by. Businessmen were huddled outside, chatting together, on smoke breaks and businesswomen sat by themselves, smoking and looking at their phones.

"I want a cigarette," Ryou told Bakura. He got one from Bakura's pocket. "Thank you," Ryou sing-songed in his sweetest voice possible and lit up.

The cigarette numbed the adrenaline rush that hit him as soon as the doctor asked them to step inside that tiny room. Sometimes, Ryou went days without smoking just so he had a bigger rush when he did.

"I'm taking you to Macy's. It's a nice store so don't act up."

Bakura was using a tone that told Ryou he was joking but Ryou didn't like the way the words sounded anyway. He just took a another drag of his cigarette. “Oh. I've never been there."

He didn't want to go either. The store was dazzling, with a black and white checkered floor and too many manufactured scents for both alphas and omegas in one room, all mixing together without blending. It made Ryou nauseous and dizzy.

Bakura noticed that he was upset and put a hand against his neck. "You still want me to pretty woman you?"

The lights were too bright and people kept bumping into Ryou. "Sure."

Bakura stopped the next salesperson they see and asked her to pick out their most expensive clothes for Ryou. "I want whatever costs the most," he ordered. "Don't hold back."

Too late, Ryou realized that the salesperson was an omega and that she recognized Bakura. It didn’t bother him - Ryou didn’t develop attachments like the omega he saw in the doctor’s waiting room and, so, he never got jealous. It didn’t make economic sense for a hooker to be jealous.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she gushed. "This is so unprofessional but are you the Bakura who is friends with Malik Ishtar?"

Bakura looked uncomfortable. "Did you hear what I said?"

She was checking Bakura out like Ryou wasn't even there and Ryou thought to himself that it didn't matter anyway. It wasn't like someone like Bakura was going to take someone like him as a mate. They were just fooling around and Ryou was having fun, wasn't he? He got to stay in a big house, got free health care, and was going to get new clothes, nicer than he'd ever had. Bakura wasn't going to take him as a mate - he was just, at best, property and an alpha could own as many omegas as they wanted, do whatever they wanted to them. Ryou was really a street rat, like Bakura said, bred to be a passable fuck toy and nicer clothes wasn’t going to change that biological fact.

"Of course, of course," the salesperson nodded, grabbing Ryou by the arm and staring at Bakura.

"Hey, babe," Bakura said to Ryou, still playing at being sleazy from their earlier conversation. "Pick out anything you like. It's on me."

That was when Ryou decided he really wasn’t in the mood and jerked away violently, out of the salesperson’s grip, so hard he felt it in his, confirmed as one broken and two fractured, ribs. "I want to go home," he told Bakura, looking at a sign that announced a sale on men’s wallets.

 

* * *

 

When they got home, Ryou asked to go to bed even though it was only 7:30 PM, which was a first. He usually just did whatever the hell he wanted.

"I was going to make dinner," Bakura said. "You don't want to eat?"

The ride home, Ryou had laid down in the backseat and, every time Bakura looked back, he had his hands over his face.

"Can I take a shower then?" Ryou asked, swaying in place.

"Sure."

They hadn't gotten any clothes. The salesgirl had been horrified and apologized so many times for doing absolutely nothing to set Ryou off that Bakura slid her a twenty. The whole situation had blown up as soon as they got out of the store.

"What the hell was that?" Bakura had wanted to know.

Ryou wouldn't acknowledge him, just ran out ahead. When he got to the street he didn't stop and a car had to hard brake, blaring its horn.

"Are you stupid or suicidal?" Bakura demanded and pulled Ryou out of the street by an arm. As soon as he did, Ryou ducked and put a hand over his head. Holy fucking shit, Bakura thought and felt disgusting.

He took his hands off Ryou immediately, who followed him back to the car a few paces behind. He didn't mention how red Ryou's face got.

It wasn't the best way to react. Bakura realized that now as he chopped potatoes and cauliflower. Ryou had been through hell, was born in it, and still thought he lived in it. Maybe he was right.

The rib fractures were gross and the deaf ear was obscene. The missing kidney, however, was absolutely horrifying. There was no way Ryou didn't already know about the kidney, though. It wasn't like the doctors who did this sort of thing had access to huge amounts of anesthesia. The operation was probably a nightmare but the discovery of it came out in the x-ray and was hardly retraumatizing.

He didn't know about the infertility, Bakura realized with a start. There was no way he would know, if they pumped him up full of birth control anyway.

Fertility was a big part of omega identity. An omega was able to become good by becoming a parent. Even if they gave the baby away, the experience was supposed to change them completely. All the soap operas and romance novels involved omegas having the children of alphas in a higher socioeconomic class and becoming a better person through the experience. All the evil characters were usually omegas who couldn't have children. They sucked the joy out of other people's lives and were bitter about their own.

After the food was on the table, Bakura braced himself and went upstairs. The bathroom light was on but the water wasn't running.

Inside, Ryou was on the floor, back against the tub, with his head between his knees. He didn't look up and so Bakura just stood there for a few minutes before he shut the door again, turned, and went back downstairs.

 

* * *

 

The next day, Malik called.

"Yo, I heard from Marik that you found an omega and dumped me? I told him, I have to hear this from the horse's mouth but guess who never called?"

Bakura was filing tax returns. Not his - just some rich prick's. He was making receipts he'd just printed out look old by putting coffee stains on them. "The horse?"

Malik cackled. "You got it right!"

"Listen, I've been busy."

"Yeah, with an omega with some sad story, right? Found him in a seedy hotel naked and trussed up? Took him home and you've been distracted ever since?"

Bakura scowled. "Who said I'm distracted?" If word got out, there would be hell to pay. Reputation mattered in his line of work.

"Me! Distracted from me!"

It took five tries to get Malik to hang up and, by then, Bakura has agreed to meet him at their usual spot at eight in the evening.

Malik was in a black hoodie, cargo pants, and baseball cap pulled over his face. As soon as Bakura pulled next to him, he got in the car and pecked Bakura on the cheek.

"Hey, boo."

They fucked in a spot by the piers and watched the skyline, lit up, after. It would almost have been romantic, if it weren’t Malik.

"You know, page six is filled with your name instead of mine for once." Malik showed Bakura on his phone.

"What?"

"Yeah, someone blabbed." The article had quotes from an anonymous friend who talked explicitly about Ryou's injuries and speculated on the cause for them. It called Ryou a street hooker from the gutter and guessed at Bakura's connections to the slums, something he avoided talking publicly about. This was fucking great. He was going to cut Dr. Wilkins off and make sure he never gets business again.

"So, how's it really going?" Malik asked.

“Nothing’s going on."

“No kidding?"

“What would be going on?"

Reaching into Bakura's jacket pocket, crumbled against the windshield, Malik pick pocketed a cigarette. "I didn't even think you swung that way."

Bakura handed him a lighter. “We haven’t fucked,” he said, sure that Malik wouldn’t have minded if they did. They shared the cigarette over Bakura's story about the doctor visit and Ryou's blow out at Macy's. When Malik listened, he didn't interrupt, just nodded every once in a while.

"It's a big deal, right?" he asked once Bakura was done and the cigarette was just a butt, "For an omega to be infertile? A lot of them get exterminated once it's found out they're useless, right?”

"I didn't think about it like that."

Malik studied Bakura's face carefully. "Well, you were kind of an ass."

"Great."

"But you could have been worse."

Bakura started to button his shirt. "Thanks."

"Ishizu would probably say he was triggered."

Ishizu was Malik and Marik's sister, an alpha who had her own psychoanalysis practice. She refused to counsel either of her brothers, even when Marik had his psychotic breakdown, and was the one who wrote Bakura's checks every month.

"You should have Ryou talk to her."

Not only was Ishizu technically one of Bakura's clients, she gave him the creeps. There was no reason for her to know some of the things she knew and, more than once, she'd known things about Bakura's life that he hadn't revealed to anyone.

"To Ishizu?"

"Yeah, she's a shrink. And she knows all about trauma. She's an Ishtar after all," Malik said self deprecatingly.

"I don't know if Ryou is the sort to talk about his problems to a doctor. He spends most of his time trying to annoy me into shutting him up with sex and the other half being just moody. He’s a demanding guy.”

Malik adjusted his hair in the mirror. "We'll ask her to talk to him as a family friend. It doesn't have to be so formal."

Bakura wanted to ask Malik just what he meant by "family" anyway, for either of them, but thought better of it, started his car, and drove Malik home.

 

* * *

 

Usually Bakura got home before midnight. This time, it was almost half past one before Ryou heard the front door open. He was in bed, hadn't left all day, and sat up, tried to arrange himself in a way that communicated both unavailability and access.

When Bakura walked in, he smelled like beta and sex.

"You're home," said Ryou. "Welcome back."

Bakura walked the perimeter of the room. "I'll take a shower," he said.

Ryou didn't ask where Bakura had been or who he had been fucking. It was all in the air, quite literally. They both knew that he knew and that Bakura knew he knew. There was no reason to talk about it and no reason for Ryou to ask. In fact, he didn't have a right to ask. He was just some poor omega street rat Bakura picked up from the streets. He should feel grateful for getting to be Bakura’s little piece of fun.

When Bakura came to bed, he still smelled like beta under the soap. "I went to see Malik," he said. “He’s Marik's brother."

The smile Ryou gave him was like plastic. "Come closer," he said even though the smell on Bakura was making his blood hot.

"He thinks you should talk to their sister."

Ryou wrapped his arms around Bakura and pulled him close. All the way through his heat, Bakura never made a move on him but it didn’t aggravate him nearly as much as it did right then. Of course it did - if Bakura was getting it from somewhere else, then Ryou wasn’t sure why he was here.

"She's a shrink."

Nuzzling Bakura's neck, Ryou slipped a tongue in Bakura's ear and felt him shiver. "You think I'm crazy?"

"Stop that," Bakura said.

"Stop what?"

"Trying to aggravate me with whatever you're doing. Flirting all the time, being fucking provocative as hell. Playing with my instincts. You're trying to make me snap and bend you over. Is that what you want?"

This upset Ryou, more than anything. He didn't move a muscle. "Oh, is that what I'm doing?"

"You're doing it right now. I don't get it. You're not even into it."

Bakura was trying to put some distance between them but Ryou wouldn't let him. "Why would you say that?"

"It's getting on my nerves."

"You mean me being a tease?”

Bakura blinked at him.

"I'm not a tease," Ryou told him. "I'd follow through. Why would you think that I wouldn't?"

All Bakura did in response was turn out the bedside lamp. "You're fucking talking to Ishizu. I'm calling her tomorrow."

In the dark, Ryou bit his lip until it bled just to make Bakura smell it and debated with himself about whether it was better to be crazy or sane in this world he knew nothing about.

 

* * *

 

Ishizu wasn't game. "No. Just, no."

Sometimes, Malik didn't get his sister. "Why not? It's not a big deal, just talk to him. One conversation."

She was making tea, black, that she always drank in the mornings. "What are you getting out of this, Malik?"

Honestly, Malik had to ask himself the same question. He'd been fooling around with Bakura for two years now but the relationship never went anywhere. Sure, he had other lovers and he didn't even ask about Bakura but this was the steadiest relationship Malik has had his entire life. He supposed it got to be so long lived because he simply didn't think about Bakura very much. He never felt like he needed to.

"I'm helping a friend out," he told Ishizu.

When she came back, it was with two cups of tea, one with milk. She gave the one with milk to Malik. "By asking me to do unpaid emotional labor on my days off? Why? Because I'm a woman?"

Shit, it was when Ishizu got like this that she became like a brick wall. "I just think you're good at what your do, sis."

Ishizu rolled her eyes. "Then pay me for me. Think carefully - would you ask me to do this if I were a man?"

"Maybe. Possibly. Shit, Ishizu...we're a family! You want me to write you a check for a conversation?"

"That's what you think I do. I got eight years of professional training to become a conversationalist. Fucking fantastic."

This was getting to Malik. "Okay, fine. I'll tell Bakura that you're not willing to help then."

"Malik," Ishizu said, sighing. "I'll give you a number. It's a colleague of mine. Name's Mai Kujaku. She specializes in omega trauma, especially sexual trauma and domestic violence. She'll be able to help a lot more than I can as long as Bakura sends Ryou during office hours and pays upfront."

 

* * *

 

Ever since Bakura brought up therapy, Ryou had been quiet. He didn't ask if anything was wrong, however, because the fake as hell smiles Ryou kept giving him every time they interacted told him not to.

"I made you an appointment to talk to a doctor," Bakura told him as they got in bed. "She's a female alpha. Ishizu recommended her."

Ryou just curled up. "Okay."

 

* * *

 

Mai Kujaku was a classy woman. She wore her dyed blonde hair long and her dark suits tight.

"Are you Japanese?" Ryou asked her as soon as they met.

"Half," Mai told him. "Japanese mother, Californian father. Boy, that was some fucked up racial dynamics."

Ryou gave her the first genuine smile Bakura had seen on him.

 

* * *

 

The kid was probably in his early twenties, skinny and twitchy as hell. Mai's first thought about him was that he had the face of a cherub, if cherubs had hollow eyes.

"I like your nails," Ryou told her once they were settled down and just as Mai was about to speak. She forgot she was wearing acrylics and was taken off guard.

"Thanks," she said and remembered she had a bit of glittery nail polish in her desk drawer. "Do you want to paint yours during the session?"

Ryou got excited, checked his own nails, which were blank and short. "Okay."

He handled the nail polish carefully but painted inexpertly, frowning at the bumpiness.

"So, you're also Japanese, Ryou?"

Ryou checked a painted thumb by holding it under the light, squinting. "Yes."

"What was the last generation for you?" Since the country had slowly become uninhabitable in the past couple decades due to nuclear leaks, the remaining Japanese population categorized themselves to each other according to the last generation that had been in Japan now.

"I came here when I was a little," Ryou said. "My parents didn't come. I had a sister but she died on the trip."

Mai's eyebrows raised. Most of the UN relief efforts had stopped decades ago. If Ryou had come to this country, he would have been very small and very alone. "That's not easy. How old were you?"

Ryou smiled at her. "I don't remember."

"How did you survive when you got here?"

"We came with some people," Ryou shrugged. "They took care of me."

"Where are those people now?"

"I was living with them until recently, when Bakura took me home with him."

From what Mai heard from Ishizu, Ryou had a trafficking background. She made a note that he was taken in at a young age, possibly sold by his parents to guarantee his survival. After the UN relief efforts stopped, because the oil crisis forced them to use their funding closer to home base, Japan slowly became uninhabitable and those unable to afford passage out, which inflation had pushed through the roof, were left to the radiation. Sex slavery was preferable to watching your flesh peel off your bones. ”How did these people take care of you, Ryou?"

"We lived together. They gave us food and stuff."

"I was told Bakura found you when he busted a sex trafficking ring." Bakura could have been lying. All the papers described him as both strategic and ruthless.

"Oh," grinned Ryou. “You already know.”

Mai tried another angle. "Do you like Bakura?"

The stare Ryou gave her was wide eyed and blank. "Yeah, he's really hot," he said in a monotone, like it was rehearsed. "I want to fuck him."

It took a bit of effort for Mai to not wince this time. This was textbook sexual trauma. ”Does he force you to do anything you don't want to do?"

For a minute, Ryou didn't move, like he was thinking about what his answer should be. "You mean, like, sex?"

"Yes, or sexual acts without your consent."

Ryou's face broke into a smile. "No. We haven't done it."

This was surprising. There was only one reason for an alpha to take an omega into his house and, in this day and age, there wasn't much to keep Bakura from taking what was rightfully his, despite Mai doing all she could to keep the laws off the table. Omega protection was a load of bull now. It was all filed under alpha property protection laws.

"And you feel safe with him?"

Ryou went back to painting his nails. "Uh-huh." Mai barely bought it.

"There an exercise I'd like to do, Ryou." From her clipboard, Mai pulled out a piece of paper. There was an outline of a person on it. She slid it over to Ryou. "I'd like you to put words that you identify with inside the person and words that other people have called you on the outside. How does that sound?"

Ryou frowned. "I don't get it."

"It's not hard." Mai took the paper back. "How about you tell me what to write and where?"

"Okay."

"What's something you identify with?"

It took a minute for Ryou to answer. "Slut."

"Okay, why do you feel like this word describes you?"

On the couch, Ryou got comfortable by laying down, still working on his nails. "Cause that's what I am. I sleep with a lot of people. If I just used people without sleeping with them for stuff I'd be a tease but I'm not. I'm a slut."

"Did you want to have a lot of sex? Or did you do it to survive?"

Ryou looked at her. "I don't get the difference."

Mai looked at the worksheet. The blank, little person stood alone on a page, labeled as a slut and nothing else. "I want to talk about this because a lot of times, we learn what names to call ourselves from other people. You picked this word up from somewhere, Ryou, and learned to attach it to yourself. I want to know if it's a word that makes you feel better about yourself or not."

"Sometimes I like it," Ryou admitted slowly. "I don't like it when other people call me a slut."

"Why not?"

"Because it means they don't respect me."

"And why it is okay when you don't respect yourself?"

A one shoulder shrug told Mai all she needed to know. "Ryou, self harm doesn't have to be a physical behavior. It's common to self harm through thoughts, ideas, and names. We get an adrenaline rush when we call ourselves nasty things. It's masochistic and addictive."

"Oh," said Ryou.

"Are there any other words you identify with?"

"Oh." Ryou finished painting the nails of one hand and started on another. "I'm manipulative.”

"Is that something someone told you or do you think it's true?"

"Both."

Mai wrote manipulative across the shoulder of the outlined figure. "Who told you that this is true?"

"Lots of people."

"Why?"

Ryou fumbled with the tiny brush, painting slower now that he was using his inexpert hand. "I do things, like flirt or have sex with people, if I want something."

"Like what things?"

"Mostly cigarettes and food. Sometimes so they cover for me for things, like if I don't get enough guys."

"Guys who buy sex from you?"

"Uh-huh."

Mai recrossed her legs. "What keeps you from getting the things you need for yourself, Ryou?"

For the first time in a while, Ryou looked up again. "I don't have any money."

"If you had money, would you still use sex to get the bare necessities?"

Ryou's brow furrowed. "Oh. No."

Mai tapped the pen against her chin. "Try to see it this way - these are things people tell you because they need you to feel a certain way and these labels keep you dependent on the people who give them to you. Telling you that you're a slut, making you identify with that, keeps you working. That was their way of manipulating you. Does that make sense?"

"I guess so," said Ryou. "A little."

"I want you to," said Mai, "tell me something that no one has ever told labeled you now. Something that you identify with on the inside but keeps getting denied by the people around.”

Minutes passed by.

When Ryou spoke he averted his eyes and kept his face blank. "Love."

 

* * *

 

When they were done, Marik picked Ryou up. He hadn't seen him since the day they found him in the hotel.

"Kura's busy," said Marik. "How was the shrink?"

Ryou gave him his politest smile. "She's nice."

"Hey," said Marik, squinting. "You're kind of cute, aren't you?"

All of Ryou's instincts told him to look down and away. The omega side of him was invested in Bakura, who was wealthy and powerful and willing to provide for him, and flirting with another alpha was suicide. Ryou winked. "So are you," he said and got in the car.

Inside the car, Marik leaned in close, extremely interested. The last time he saw Ryou, he was in heat. The pheromones were probably on his clothes for days. "Wanna fuck?" he asked.

Ryou met his gaze. "For free?"

"Shit," smirked Marik. "Alright, how much?"

"How much do you have?"

From his wallet, Marik removed a hundred, a fifty, and stack of twenties. There was another hundred left and Ryou chewed on his lip. "Why won't you give me all of it?" he asked.

Marik was still smirking but he pulled the last bill out too and put the whole stack on the windshield. "You better give me my money's worth. That's almost five hundred dollars. More money than you've ever gotten for a fuck."

Ryou just took the money and counted it, pocketed it. Then, he gave a big, bright smile, said, "You'd be surprised," and pulled Marik into a kiss. As soon as he did, Marik slammed him into the car window, growling into his mouth and pulling up his shirt.

"You turn me on," Marik snarled.

Reaching around, Ryou managed to stroke him through his jeans while trying to keep his head from getting hit against the window too hard. He let his shirt come off, right in the parking lot of the psychiatric clinic, and gasped when Marik bit down on a shoulder.

"Your bruises are pretty," Marik told him, looking at them appreciatively.

Ryou licked his lips and tried to think of something to say. "Thanks. I like your muscles."

It was a ridiculous thing to say and Marik seemed to think so too, judging by his face, but looked like he enjoyed the compliment anyway.

"I like the way this feels too," Ryou told him, a finger outlining the hard on in Marik's jeans. "So hot and hard. It’s a nice thing.”

Marik choked with a laugh. "You're fucking kidding me."

It got him going, though, and he was pulling Ryou's pants down, his legs up, and grinding his cock against Ryou's ass through his jeans in just a few minutes.

"Fuck," gasped Ryou and it sounded almost real. "Oh, take it out. Pretty please."

Marik leaned in close to his mouth. "You say that to everyone?" he breathed into Ryou's mouth as he unbuttoned his jeans.

It turned out that Marik came prepared and fished out a condom from his pocket. "Move your head," he told Ryou. "There's lube in the glove compartment."

Ryou blinked. The glove compartment banged against his head a little anyway as it opened.

Marik didn't prep Ryou because this wasn't something intimate he was doing with a lover. This wasn't making love and it wasn’t tender. This was nothing more than a fast bang in a car with a whore. Ryou was in a position he was very comfortable in.

When Marik went into him, Ryou grabbed at his shoulders, moaned just right, exposed his neck. "Oh, fuck you're big. You fill me up so good. I'm going to come right now just from your fucking huge cock going into me like this," he rambled without having to think at all.

The things he said during sex were crass, dirty, and cliche. No one wanted to hear you wax poetic in their ear when they were fucking you. They wanted the filth, the roles everyone else was too embarrassed to play.

Marik laughed at Ryou as he moaned all about his big, hard cock and how it felt so good but he got harder just hearing it. And it wasn't like Ryou was lying. Sex was easy and it felt fucking fantastic.

When Marik was done he looked down at Ryou and gasped for air. "Do you want to come?"

Ryou was waiting for him to get off of him. "If you want."

Once they were dressed, Marik looked over before he started the car. "You know, hooking is probably the only job in the world where the customer does all the work." Ryou hid his smile behind a hand.

 

* * *

 

As soon as Bakura walked in the door, he smelled it. Marik was everywhere in his house. He scent was all over Ryou.

Ryou was on the couch, reclining and doing a rubric's cube he dug out from somewhere.

Just the week before, Bakura had fucked the other Ishtar and he had no right to say anything now, if he and Ryou were on equal terms. The thing was, they weren't. He was an alpha and Ryou was his omega bitch. The documents he signed that afternoon made Ryou his property.

"I went to city hall," Bakura told Ryou, who was ignoring him and still doing the rubric's cube. "Got you registered under my name."

"Oh."

"You're supposed to sign it too. I thought you would want to take a look."

Ryou lifted an eyebrow. "I have to sign?"

"It's optional. The contract's binding either way."

"Can you read it to me?"

Yes, Ryou was mad at him and it was starting to drive Bakura crazy. Sitting down on the couch, he cupped one of Ryou's ankles. It was hard to do. The smell that Marik left on Ryou told him to smash something and make it his.

"Ryou, take this seriously. If you don't want to stay here, I'll get it revoked in the morning."

The rubric's cube landed on Bakura's lap and Bakura realized that Ryou had solved it. "I can't read," Ryou said, turning so that his face was buried in the back of the couch.

Shit. It was Bakura's turn to blink dumbly. He didn't, just cleared his throat. "The first condition says that you have to reside on my property," he said, lifting the papers up.

"Okay," said Ryou immediately.

"The second says that I have a right to your name and any property or material wealth connected to it."

Ryou giggled. "That's funny cause I don't have any."

"It's not that funny."

"Whatever."

Bakura moved on. "The third term says that..." He trailed off. This made Ryou all ears.

"What is it?"

"I can sell or trade you at any time of my choosing."

Bored again, Ryou leaned back. "Oh. I already knew that."

"Ryou."

"Hm?"

Bakura put the papers on the table and offered something he'd been contemplating for days. "If you don't like this, I can put you in an apartment somewhere, give you enough to live on every month. You could work or not. Do whatever the fuck you like."

Seconds passed by and Ryou didn't move. "What's in it for you?" he finally asked.

Bakura moved away just slightly but Ryou was sensitive to it and followed him with his legs, putting one on Bakura's shoulder. "I'd be nice."

Ryou still had his face in the cushions so Bakura couldn't see his face. "Why are you being so nice to me?"

Straightening up and ignoring him, Bakura rolled his eyes and grabbed the packet of forms again. "Number four says any damage to your person gives me the right to sue accordingly because you belong to me."

"I have a question," said Ryou.

"Ask away. It's not like any of these are negotiable."

"Does this mean that I'm collared?"

Collaring was an archaic practice no one in legitimate society did anymore. People in the lower classes still liked it but it was considered both barbaric and a waste of time. Why show your ownership over an omega with a flimsy piece of leather when you could make sure they were yours legally and forever?

"It's not the same. This is permanent."

The bland expression Ryou gave Bakura told him he didn't see the difference.

Snorting, Bakura stood up. "Take a shower," he told Ryou. "You reek. Sign this if you want to but I'm not forcing you."

When he came back into the room, Ryou was gone, the shower was running, and neat handwriting, tentatively spaced, filled the form's bottom line.

 

* * *

 

"Let's talk about Bakura," Mai began their next session with. That day, she was wearing a silk blouse with slim fitting leather pants. It was business casual meet dominatrix.

"Okay," said Ryou. Mai had given him a coloring book this time because she could see that his hands went all over the place when they weren't busy.

"Can you describe your relationship a little?"

Ryou was only completely blasé about things he didn't know how to talk about. "He's like a mother to me."

"Really," said Mai in a deadpan. She knew when to take his shit and when not to. "A mother? You mean he takes care of you?”

"Yeah, a mother I'd like to fuck," said Ryou like he wasn't saying anything dirty at all.

Mai didn't even blink. "Do you? Does he expect sex as part of your arrangement?"

Sucking in a cheek, Ryou thought about the anger that radiated off of Bakura the night after he'd done Marik in the car. "Not really."

"How did you two meet?" Mai wanted to know.

"At a hotel."

"He was a client?"

Ryou didn’t know how much Bakura protected about the logistics of his business. “Hm. I was in heat."

Now, Mai looked surprised, just a little. "How was that for you?"

For a second, Ryou stopped coloring to talk. "I go into heat a lot. They gave me drugs to speed up the cycle. I'm due again in a couple days."

It had been on the back of his mind for the last few days, that he was about to feel that familiar yearning between his legs soon and that it was inevitable. That morning, Bakura had told him to not wait up, that he had to go on business for a week. Ryou didn't even ask where he was going. All he had left was a cell phone number and told Ryou to call if he wanted to chat but that he didn't expect him to if he didn't want to.

Someone named Malik had picked him up that morning and Ryou had recognized the scent on him as the beta Bakura had fucked two weeks ago but didn't say anything. This was someone Ryou had seen in the tabloids before but the real deal was a whole thing altogether. Malik’s skin was smooth and brown, a white shirt and white pants perfect and clean against his bleached hair, dark glasses, and sharp posture. Diamonds were hanging from his ears and he smelled like money.

"I'm Marik's brother," Malik had said.

Ryou just grinned. "Marik and Malik."

Malik didn’t look at him. "Yeah, we get that a lot. The M&M's." The drive had been silent.

"Are you okay going through them alone?" Mai asked Ryou now. "I know it can be hard."

She had no idea. She was an alpha. Heats made Ryou feel more alive than he ever would be and like he should take a steak knife and drive it through his temple - only vaguely suicidal.

"I guess I don't want to spend it by myself."

Mai nodded. "Well, is there anyone you'd like to spend it with? What about Bakura?"

Ryou's scent wouldn't change for a few more days, at least three, to indicate his upcoming heat. He wasn't disappointed when Bakura told him he was going away because he chose not to.

"That would be nice."

"You can talk to him about it."

Ryou went back to coloring in the book. "Oh. How?"

In her seat, Mai sat up straighter. These types of conversations were what she was trained for. "It's normal to feel like you need an alpha to be with you when you're in a vulnerable state, Ryou. Talking through it establishes consent on both sides. It tells him what you're okay with and gives him a chance to respond. It gives the two of you the chance to lay down some groundwork. Just because you want him to stay with you, for example, doesn't mean you can't establish boundaries."

"Like," said Ryou, "what?"

"What are some things you wouldn't want him to do to you?"

The marker in Ryou's hand slipped and crossed a line. He frowned at it before turning the page and starting on another one. "I don't know."

As soon as he said it, Mai was pulling a worksheet out of her clipboard. "We can talk about it."

Ryou continued coloring. "Sure."

 

* * *

 

He called Bakura the next night. There was a wireless landline in the kitchen that Ryou took to bed with some food and laid on his stomach with his feet in the air. Before he dialed the number, Ryou thought about what Malik had told him in the car on their way home. 

“You know.” Malik had been driving and Bossa nova made every movement he made seem languid. “You remind me of him.”

In the sideview mirror, Ryou caught his own face. He looked clueless and blue.

Malik had kept talking. “We’ve been screwing around for a few years, if you’re wondering. It’s not serious. Bakura’s always had this complex that everyone’s working against him. Nobody gets through his paranoia filters.”

Once they were back at the house, Malik had waited outside until Ryou unlocked the front door successfully with his index fingerprint. That morning, Bakura had programmed it for him.

When he called, Bakura picked up on the third ring.

"Hello?" Bakura's voice was sleep encrusted and made Ryou smile.

"Hey."

"Ryou."

"You didn't know it was me?"

Bakura cleared his throat. "It's the middle of the night here."

"Oh," said Ryou. "Where are you?"

"Bangladesh."

"Is that where you're from?"

From the other line, Ryou could hear Bakura moving. "No, I'm from Syria."

That, Ryou didn't know. "Oh."

The conversation went quiet and Ryou let it. He wanted to see if Bakura would hang up.

"Are you eating?" Bakura sounded more awake and Ryou could hear something like running water.

"Uh-huh."

"What are you eating?"

Ryou looked down at his plate. There was two hot dogs boiled in water. "Hot dogs. And ketchup."

The running water stopped. "You should have enough food until I come back. There’s microwave meals in the freezer.”

Shifting the phone onto one ear, Ryou started cutting a hot dog into bite sized pieces. "I have a question."

"Sure."

"Can you be with me for my next heat?"

In the moment that followed, Ryou counted and thought that the odds that Bakura would hang up or stop talking were 50%. "When is it?" Bakura finally said.

It was Tuesday. “Maybe Saturday. Maybe sooner."

"I'm not back until Monday."

The hot dogs tasted raw - Ryou probably didn't boil them for long enough. "Oh. I guess you'll miss it,” he said casually.

There was a sigh and then Bakura was saying, "I'll take an earlier flight. Be back Friday night at the earliest."

This was magic, working it’s way in Ryou’s life for the first time. Ryou grinned from ear to ear. The hot dog didn't taste so bad after all. Whatever Bakura had gone all the way to South Asia for had to be important - the region was so war torn an extreme religious minority had taken over and only those with clearance could make the trip.

"Okay," Ryou said. "I'll see you Friday."

 

* * *

 

Friday came and Ryou's heat didn't come. He spent the day watching daytime television and trying to manifest it. When he heard Bakura's key at the door around 10 PM, he turned the TV off.

Bakura came in smelling like airport with a carry on suitcase and in a thin, cotton shirt. Every muscle made the shirt curve in just the right places.

"You look good," Ryou told him.

"I'm fucking beat," Bakura said and disappeared into the kitchen. The faucet ran and he came out with two glasses of water.

"It didn't come yet?" Bakura asked, moving Ryou's legs so he could sit on the couch. "You smell like it's going to."

Ryou took the water. "Why do you drink tap water when you have money?"

"It's just water."

"No it's not. There's a ton of stuff in it."

"There's a ton of shit in everything. Everything's fucked."

Ryou just shrugged and changed the topic. "Did you miss me?"

It made Bakura smile, just like he thought it might. "It's been three days."

"Four."

"Hold on," said Bakura. "I got you something." The attention Ryou gave him was instant.

It was a stuffed animal, small and yellow, the kind made for babies to sleep with.

"Cute," smiled Ryou. "Thanks."

 

* * *

 

The next day, Ryou's heat didn't come either and neither did it come the next day. He thought about apologizing but Bakura didn't say anything and Ryou always believed that saying sorry for something was more incriminating than anything else. It wasn't like he had a chance to - Bakura spent most of the time yelling at people on the phone, sometimes in a language Ryou didn't understand.

He must have been less than his usual cheery self, however, because Bakura acted like something was wrong.

He didn't roll his eyes when Ryou complained about the food he made for Sunday dinner, let Ryou pick a TV show to watch after eating, and even watched it with him instead of working on a computer like he usually did.

Either the prospect of spending a heat with Bakura made Ryou so nervous his body refused to exert the effort or something was permanently fucked inside of him. The last thing Ryou wanted was to consider either options and what they might mean.

"Let's go to bed," he said when it was 2 AM and they'd been watching a hospital drama about an omega nurse from a good family and an alpha doctor who had struggled from a past filled with poverty for almost five hours.

Ryou didn't want to go to bed because going to bed would be admitting his heat wasn't going to come that day, that Bakura coming home early was pointless, and that he was a waste of time, energy, and space. "One more episode?"

Bakura turned the TV off. "Bed." When Ryou didn't move he brushed a lock of hair out of Ryou's face. "You know, if you think something's wrong, we should go to the doctor instead of watching one on TV."

In the dark, Ryou made a grab for the remote and managed to get it out from Bakura's hands.

"You're impossible," Bakura said and stood up. "I'm going to bed." Ryou was left watching TV by himself until it was morning, he hadn't had a bit of sleep, and he had no idea what the drama was about.

 

* * *

 

Bakura found Ryou still on the couch Monday morning staring at the ceiling with the sound on the TV on full blast, new stuffed owl sitting on his chest. The voices from the program had jolted him awake and made sure he couldn't fall asleep.

"What the fuck?" When he turned the show off, the morning felt too silent. "What's wrong with you?"

That was exactly the wrong question to ask. There was a lot wrong with Ryou. He wasn't the right type of omega for someone like Bakura to pick as a mate, not even the type someone in his position would pick to own, if he had any dignity. He was too demanding and had no idea how to function in polite society. His heat cycle was fucked up, inconvenient, and, now, it was completely missing.

"I was trying to wake you up," said Ryou. "I'm hungry."

Bakura couldn't make himself care about any of those things because he just couldn't.

"What do you want to eat?"

On top of all that, Ryou couldn't even make a decision. "Surprise me."

It was Monday and Bakura was supposed to go back to work. After ditching a campaign to wrestle uranium from miners in India by bribing a sick government official with a human liver he needed, Bakura had work to do. The underling he left in charge of the operation was barely effective and definitely not trustworthy. Ryou had therapy that morning and Bakura would drop him off, try to find time on a lunch break to pick him up. He couldn't ask Malik again if he didn't want an earful about how busy the beta was growing his lifestyle brand.

Breakfast was porridge with eggs. "I'll pick you up after therapy," he told Ryou. "You might have to wait for a few hours."

Ryou hadn't moved an inch from the couch. That was fine with Bakura - he didn't have time to deal with him just then. He had to charge his phone and make a call at the same time. Breakfast was on the kitchen counter.

They were on the highway in a traffic jam when Ryou gasped. Bakura didn't have to ask why because the scent already told him.

" _Fuck_ ," Bakura swore. "Goddammit fucking damn it!" The next exit was a mile away. In the passenger seat, Ryou drew his legs up and curled up tight.

The cell phone charging on the car charged was automatically connected to bluetooth and started ringing. Of course it was Marik.

"What do you want?" Bakura snapped when he picked up.

"We got the material," Marik drawled lazily. "You told me to call you right away when we got it. So I'm calling."

"Great. I'm hanging up now."

Ryou whimpered out loud.

"Is that-" Bakura didn't need to hear the end of it.

"Are you going to stain my seat?" he asked Ryou. Bakura was on edge, felt like everything in him was screaming at him to rip through traffic and find a place to park so he was screw the living daylights out of the omega in his passenger seat.

Ryou just moaned again, louder. "I need-"

"Fuck," Bakura said again. "Don't you dare provoke me."

He should call Mai and tell her they weren't going to make it but the exit was finally close and Bakura cut off two people to get to it.

 

* * *

 

 

By the time they were back at Bakura's house, Ryou felt like crying, his insides were cramping so hard. The heat had came on so suddenly and intensely it felt like his body was punishing him for not having it earlier.

He wouldn't cry. He didn't ever cry.

"Can you walk?" Bakura asked when he had parked in the garage and Ryou hadn't moved. His voice was low - had it always been this low? Ryou's body responded by giving him another wave and arching his hips.

Bakura got out of the car, walked to the other side, opened the door, and picked Ryou up. Slick was already leaking through his pants.

In Bakura's arms, Ryou's face was dangerously close to Bakura's neck. He could smell how turned on Bakura was - the scent was strong and sharp. Without thinking about it, Ryou put his hands around that neck and sucked on a piece of it.

"Shit, that feels _good_ ," hissed Bakura and kissed him hard, doing something with his tongue that made Ryou feel weak.

The muscles on Bakura's shoulders were big and heavy from holding Ryou up and it was just the right thing for Ryou to lean into, rub his hands against.

"You want to fuck, right?" Bakura asked Ryou when they were in his bedroom. "Tell me you want to fuck."

Ryou was busy pulling Bakura closer on the bed by a shirt that had to come off right then. "Are you stupid?"

"I want to hear you say it."

They were face to face and Ryou glared right into Bakura's eyes. "Please fuck me, Mr. Alpha-sama sir." His voice was all sex and sarcasm.

Bakura snarled in his face like an animal. "You little shit."

Clothes came off and, in no time, Ryou was face down in the mattress, ass in the air humping at nothing while Bakura rubbed a thumb between Ryou's cheeks, going up once and down, spreading the slick around.

"Come on, come on," breathed Ryou, grinding against the bed.

Bakura held his hips in place as he slid a finger into Ryou experimentally, out again, in, and circled around. The sound Ryou made was all desperation.

Another finger went in and Ryou started to fuck them, trying to get more out of what was clearly _not enough_. He was so wet the slick made squishing sounds every time he moved his hips.

"Just do it, come on," Ryou begged.

The next second, Bakura took his fingers out and left Ryou trying to fuck himself on nothing until something harder, bigger, and hotter was slipping against Ryou's hole, missing, and then stretching it open.

"Fuck," moaned Ryou. "Oh fuck fuck fuck.”

The burn was slow and felt so good. Bakura's entire cock in Ryou's ass made him feel like he was opened wide open. Then, he started to move. Involuntarily, Ryou's hand flung out, grabbed the head board. He could press the heel on his hand into the wood and push himself back against Bakura's thrusts.

Behind him, Bakura grunted and shifted so he was on one knee and lifted a leg so his foot was flat against the bed for leverage. Then he started to fuck Ryou harder and faster than Ryou thought he could get fucked.

Every movement rubbed Ryou's tender insides and hit that sweet spot inside of him hard enough that groaning wasn't optional anymore. Ryou was losing himself, didn't care about anything except the back and forth, the friction, the slide, and the feeling of Bakura hitting him right where it made him silly. The sounds he was making were close to little whines and whimpers.

"Ah-" Ryou let out and cut off when the pressure peaked and hot come leaked all over his stomach.

"Shit," said Bakura. "You come just from fucking?"

Ryou rolled his head back once, groaned in reply. "Keep going, keep going, keep going," he said quickly.

Bakura kept going like he never stopped and it was too intense. The skin under Ryou's eyes were wet but he doesn't remember crying. Every time Bakura thrust deep into him, his head hit the headboard.

When a hand came to grab Ryou's eyes he tried to jerk up and bite the heel before he realized Bakura was trying to cushion his forehead against the wood. Another hand grabbed him by the throat and pulled him back with every fuck, making Ryou feel them twice as hard and lose his breath every time Bakura went deep.

All Bakura did when he came was open his mouth, gasp, and bite his lip. Hot come filled Ryou's most private part and his cock twitched again from the feeling. Bakura pulled out slowly and carefully, put his hand on Ryou's back to hold him down, and smeared a thumb against his hole when the come started to leak out. It made Ryou twitch and shiver.

"You're crying," said Bakura when they were side by side. Ryou rubbed a hand across his face, hard, until Bakura took him by the wrist. Then, Ryou really started to cry, sobs that made him hiccup and need air.

The entire time, Bakura watched him. He didn't try to stop him, didn't say anything, and didn't look away.

"You're really crying," Bakura said in awe. "Like, ugly crying."

Through his tears, laughter made Ryou's face warp even more until Bakura kissed him so softly it forced him still.

 

* * *

 

The next wave hit in the afternoon when the height of noon had passed and the light was turning cooler. Bakura was downstairs on a conference call so Ryou just turned on his side and bit on a thumb. The stuffed animal Bakura gave him was somewhere in the sheets and he squeezed it between a wrist and his chest.

A long hour passed before Bakura came to check on him. He walked in when Ryou was grating his hips against a pillow.

Without a word, Bakura got on the bed, eyes locked with Ryou's, and took his foot into both hands, kissed the ankle, and hooked it over his shoulder, holding Ryou wide open. Come was mixed with slick between Ryou's legs. Ryou wanted to wrap his legs, his arms, around the alpha between his legs, just latch on like he would perish without him but he always hated clingy omegas and resisted the impulse as he watched Bakura undo his pants and give himself a few strokes.

The first breach into Ryou took his breath and made it a choked sound, the stretch unbearable, and his hips jerking up by themselves to meet Bakura's. It was deep, sudden, and the way Bakura handled him was like something holy when Ryou knew he wasn't anything close.

Instead of pulling back and pushing back in, Bakura ground himself deeper and deeper into Ryou. His eyes kept contact the whole time, taking in every little expression Ryou made, and Ryou felt like something would break if he looked away.

Ryou came with a whimper and without realizing he was close just from the feeling of Bakura so deep inside. Bakura still didn't look away.

"Kiss me," he demanded and Ryou did it without needing to think. Bakura kissed him back savagely with a mouth that tasted hot and brutalizing.

 

* * *

 

That night, Bakura woke up to crying. Next to him, Ryou was still asleep and in the middle of another wave, the smell of which had woken Bakura up, doing its biological job. A bite on Ryou's earlobe woke him up.

Ryou gave a groan and pulled Bakura to him with an unexpected violence. "Don't," he said, voice wavering. "Don't, don't, don't, don't, don't."

Bakura didn't know what he wasn't supposed to do so he put a hand against Ryou's slippery thigh and scraped his teeth against Ryou's jaw, not hard enough to leave a mark.

"I can't stand it," murmured Ryou. Bakura made circles against his thigh with a finger but didn't reach any higher, let Ryou grind against his hip and gritting his teeth to make himself stay still.

"You don't know what to do with an omega," Ryou accused with a hiss. "You shouldn't have left me this afternoon. I want you right next to me when I get like this."

Bakura grabbed Ryou by the hair and jerked his head around so he could whisper in his ear, "I know exactly what to do with you."

Immediately, Ryou moaned, his brows furrowing together. "It hurts," he said and pulled Bakura's hand further up his legs.

All Bakura gave him was a finger, the middle one. He could feel Ryou contract around it. Every muscle felt tight as he forced the finger in and out of him as slowly as possible. They went on for this for a long time until Ryou had stopped crying and was moving his hips to Bakura's hand.

"I need more," Ryou told him.

Pushing Ryou's arms off, Bakura moved under the covers where everything smelled like sex and sweat and got between Ryou's legs. He made Ryou come with his mouth and a finger rubbing his prostate, arching helplessly off the bed.

He let Ryou come down from it, pulling sweaty hairs out of his face before he asked. "What was that?"

Ryou rolled into his chest and pressed his face into his neck. "That was nice."

"You were crying."

"I didn't mean to. It."

"You were sleeping."

With teeth, Ryou bit down hard on the tiniest bit of skin from Bakura's neck. It fucking hurt. "I was dreaming."

Bakura's hand came up automatically to pull Ryou away from the bite but when it reached the long, white hair, he decided against it and pulled him close, bearing with the pain. "What about?"

"I don't remember."

There were teeth pressed into Bakura's neck and so he decided to let sleeping matters lie.

 

* * *

 

"I want you to buy me a collar," said Ryou in the morning.

Bakura was half asleep still. "It's over?" He meant Ryou's heat. "What time is it?"

"Early." The clock said 5:43 AM. Bakura was going to sleep for another twenty minutes. Unfortunately, Ryou put a wet finger into his ear.

"What the hell?"

"Can you get up?"

Bakura put a pillow over his head to protect his ear. "Hell, no. I did a lot of work yesterday." He was slipping into unconsciousness when Ryou pulled the blankets off him and straddled his legs. Bakura tried to ignore him and hugged the pillow around him tighter.

Then, his underwear was pulled off and something wet surrounded his cock. Fuck.

Ryou was good at this. It was like he had no gag reflex and he played Bakura's cock around in his mouth like it was a toy. He knew exactly what to do. Within minutes, Bakura was fully hard and wide awake, scowling into his pillow.

"I'll make you come if you buy me a collar," Ryou told him when he threw the pillow off for air.

"I'll buy you a fucking diamond ring," Bakura said.

Ryou leaned in like he was going to kiss him and pulled back at the last second. "Is that what I asked for?"

Bakura had to laugh. “Sure, I’ll buy you a collar," he said.

Before he delivered, Ryou licked his lips and looked down, a self satisfied smile turning one corner of his mouth up.

 

* * *

 

They had to go to the slums to find a shop that sold collars. Since he found Ryou there, Bakura had visited a few times. He always avoided the parts where he had lived when he was a child.

Ryou told him where to go, which turns to make, and stopped them in front of two decrepit buildings with a five foot gap between them. Between the gap, people were selling everything from slices of cloned flesh, stolen electronics, and the kinds of sex toys you couldn't find anywhere else. Bakura was out of place here in his Italian designer suit, fresh from a meeting, but Ryou looked right at home.

"This is cute," Ryou said about a t-shirt with a bunny on it. The bunny's tail was made with a pom pom. The stall that sold it was full of similar items, all cheap, wholesale, and covered in plastic.

"Yeah, it's cute." Reaching into his pocket, Bakura pulled out cash. The shirt was worth half of what the shopkeeper charged him.

Ryou leaned close and took his arm as they moved through the bodies that filled the alley. "Everyone says that the sexiest thing a man can do is pull out his wallet."

A corner of Bakura's mouth went up. "Your friends are a bad influence."

"I don't have friends. You don't either."

Bakura didn't know what to say to that but he didn't have to. They found a stall that sold dildos so big he couldn't think of any practical use aside from torture, gags that hooked into facial piercings, and a set of collars all lined up together. He leaned against a pole as Ryou ran his fingers over each of them.

"Do you like this one?" Ryou asked, holding up one that was black with small spikes on the inside, an attachment with a hollow dildo gag.

"Five hundred," the stall owner called out, keeping an eye on Ryou's fast moving fingers and scanning Bakura's suit and watch.

Lifting an eyebrow, Bakura asked, "Won't that hurt?" Ryou gave him a look he couldn't read, put it back, looked around carefully, and picked out another one hanging on the wall.

"This one's nice." It was thick and black, with D-rings around the perimeter.

Bakura shrugged. "Sure."

“Five fifty," the stall keeper interrupted. Ryou turned to him.

"Do you have any other colors?"

Acting like it was a huge effort, the man, elderly and shrunken, retried a couple samples from a box at his feet. In plastic, the same collar came in a red so bloody it was cliché, a purple that was too bright, and a baby blue. "Six hundred," the man told Bakura, "for color."

"I like the blue one," said Ryou.

Bakura nodded. "Yeah, it's nice."

"Six twenty five," the stall keeper said. If they stood around any longer it would be up to seven hundred soon. Bakura watched Ryou examine it like he was looking at a toy he'd wanted for a lifetime and was finally getting.

"I want this one," Ryou finally decided. The way he said it told Bakura he'd already decided for a while now and was holding out for whatever reason.

"Six fifty," the man said, getting a bag out. Bakura reached for his wallet.

Ryou cut in. "You're going to pay $650 for me?"

Bakura counted out bills and lifted an eyebrow. "You want me to haggle?"

"He's not even trying."

The stall keeper was pretending he couldn't hear them because he could see that Bakura was already going to pay him.

"You couldn't pay me to haggle," Bakura said and gave the stall owner the full amount plus a generous tip.

 

* * *

 

At home, Ryou couldn't wait for Bakura to put the collar on him. When he was younger, a friend of his disappeared from the streets. The next time Ryou saw her, an alpha was leading her around on a leash.

"I just have to fuck one person now, you know? It's so much _easier_ ," she told Ryou. " _And_ he buys me candy."

A few months later, she had disappeared. The word on the street said that the alpha traded her to some photographer who had known for getting caught with dead, mutilated omegas.

Ryou made Bakura sit back on the couch and got on his hands and knees, crawling forward and pretending to be a pussy cat.

"You're really into this, aren't you?" asked Bakura.

When Ryou got close enough, he knelt very obediently and very quietly. The collar was too loose when Bakura put it on.

"Tighter," he said.

Bakura wrapped a hand around his neck as he adjusted the strap. They could do this during sex, if Bakura would play along. A finger slipped between the collar and Ryou's neck.

"How's that?"

"Could be tighter."

"I think it's fine."

On the floor, Ryou pushed Bakura's legs open wider, wedged himself between them, stroked up on the insides of both thighs through the fabric simultaneously, and smiled wide. "Now I belong to you," he said.

Bakura put a hand in his hair. First he smoothed Ryou's bangs back. Then, he took a handful and pulled. With the other hand he cupped Ryou's cheek. “Sure you do."

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that wasn't a total pain to read - cliche plot and universe I know...I really tried to plan my Ryou carefully, however, to be interesting and make up for those things. I dislike woobie!Ryou so he came out like this sarcastic, bitchy, and extremely cold person who is also sort of controlling. I tried to think of him and Bakura in terms of temperature a lot to use a binary that wasn't explicitly gendered.
> 
> All the loose ends here leaves me room to think about what happens next. This may become a part of a series, maybe not. This one took me a year to dream out so the next one might remain a figment of my imagination. Who knows!
> 
> BTW, I decided to make Bakura Syrian because, at the time the ancient Egyptian events in Yugioh took place, Assyria was becoming more powerful. It's possible that was the threat Atem's father was trying to fend off. Really, the whole story is about empire. There were a whole bunch of villages between Egypt and Assyria that got caught in the crossfire. I can see Kul Elna and being one of them - a place no one cared about.
> 
> Thanks for bearing with this weird fantasy of mine <3


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